


Something Better

by wingeddserpent



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-03
Updated: 2011-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-15 08:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/wingeddserpent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vaan sometimes likes to take the time to see the bright side of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dagas isa (dagas_isa)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagas_isa/gifts).



There’s always that feeling down here. The feeling of the walls pressing in, and the floor cracking, and maybe the sky outside falling, like it did the night your brother died.

Your hands around the bread clench, and a voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like Penelo warns you against waste.

But you ignore it, and watch the crumbs fall to the ground, and the part of you that’s bitter and aching and angry thinks that it’s kind of fitting. Come on, that’s all the Archadians leave the Low Towners, anyway, right?

What right do you have to dream of something better?

You devour the bread with a snarl that might be more like a sob, and you half choke on the food, but you don’t care. At least it’s something, which is more than you usually have.

Now that you’re fed, or as fed as you’re going to get, you stand up from your little corner, and move through the familiar alleyways. People you don't know and people you know stop to watch your path with furrowed brows and wide eyes and maybe they’re finally realizing that you’re not okay.

Well, good for them.

It doesn’t take long, not long at all. It’s not like the Lower city is very big, and you get to the little waterfall that comes in from the upper city in record time.

It’s the only place to get good, clean water down here, and you flop down beside it on the unforgiving concrete, and you watch.

Outside, the sun is at its zenith, and the way it hits the water creates color, creates a rainbow, and you sigh, and the tenseness leaves your shoulders, and that biting rage, that vicious hollowness goes too.

Even down here, even away from the sunlight, away from your old homes and lives, you can all still have beauty and color and life.

Breathing evenly, you shut your eyes, and feel the tug of darkness.

  
“Vaan?” Penelo wakes you with a strong shake.

“I’m up,” you say, and sit up fast. For a moment, you just look at her, at the downturned corners of her mouth, and you ask, “I missed dinner again, didn’t I?”

She sighs, and sits down next to you, near enough that you can feel her warmth through her leathers. Only then do you realize that the concrete beneath you is cold like ice, and you half-turn to her and grin. “Sorry, Pen,” you say.

Leaning her head against your shoulder, she murmurs, “It’s okay. I spent the gil already, anyway. Sorry.”

And she sounds so miserable for someone who obviously used the money to help Kytes or Filo that you wrap an arm around her and pull her close. “Don’t worry about it,” you tell her, “Some other time.”

Penelo nods, once, and then she turns her gaze to the stream of water, and you’re both silent for awhile.

When she lays down, you lay with her, and wrap arms around her. Because the only thing worse than being an orphan in the Lower city is being an orphan all by yourself in the Lower city.

Gotta take your rainbows where you can get them, right?


End file.
